A thriving home for all the arts

05/16/2017 11:15AM
● By J. Chambless

(Photo by Arhscana Images) Professional dancers will perform as part of the debut show by Nickerson-Rossi Dance on June 2, 3 and 4.

By John ChamblessStaff Writer

Six years ago, putting a theater in the
middle of West Chester seemed like a great idea, but not really
possible. But during a tour of the Uptown! Knauer Performing Arts
Center in April, Michael Nickerson-Rossi showed off the results: A
pristine main theater space with brand-new seating, lighting and
sound system; studio space upstairs and downstairs; two bar/reception
areas; two immaculate new dressing rooms; rehearsal spaces … In
short, everything a performing arts organization could need.

The former national Guard Armory
building looks the same on the outside, but the inside is a hive of
activity, providing a broad, diverse lineup of music, theater, dance,
film screenings and classes. It's been a long road, but after a New
Year's Eve kickoff party and four months of full-time activity, the
future looks limitless.

(Photo by John Chambless) Michael Nickerson-Rossi, Therese Walden-Murphy and Angela Scully are working to make the Uptown! Knauer Performing Arts Center a hub for the arts in West Chester.

“I'm based in the greater Los Angeles
area, where the company is from,” he said. “I also own the
brand-new Palm Springs Dance Festival. I had been in that area all of
my L.A. dance career. The company had been touring in Italy, and we
brought in international guest artists. My family's from this area,
and they let me know about this new project. With my connections, I
feel I can make this an outstanding Mecca for dance. Eventually, I
will do a dance festival in the West and here. The company is
Nickerson-Rossi Dance, so we have NRD West and NRD East. I'm flying
two of my dancers from the West to our performance here for our East
Coast premiere on June 2, 3 and 4.” Nickerson-Rossi,
who leads Nickerson-Rossi Dance, a resident modern dance company at
the theater, can't wait to get started. Sitting in the main
auditorium, where the seats still have a new-car smell, he explained
how the company landed in West Chester.

That show, “Blueprints,” will
“offer the community the makeup of dance, how I feel I will program
dance in this theater,” he said.

Nickerson-Rossi offers training for
young dancers, and will bring in four professional artists in July –
one each week – to teach workshops and choreograph a dance with the
students. The results will be shown in a summer program on Aug. 19.
“So I'm giving them some really great experiences,” he said.

(Photo by John Chambless) The former armory building in West Chester looks much the same on the outside, but has been completely revamped inside.

But there's lots more going on at the
performing arts center. There are nine resident companies who either
rehearse or perform there, and the West Chester Studio for the
Performing Arts is opening doorways to theater for young people
across the region. Therese Walden-Murphy is a professional actress
who leads classes in various aspects of theater for ages 4 through
adults. She's also the education director for Uptown. “When I was interviewing here, I was
asked if I saw myself competing with the Brandywine Ballet Company,
but no, we're a modern, contemporary company,” he added. “In the
borough, there are no others. That's what the exciting part is.
There's a lot of people from Delaware, from different counties, who
travel into Philly to see dance, and now they can come here.”

“I brought West Chester Studio to
Uptown to be their education program,” she said. “My way of
looking at education for young children through the arts is that we
do bring in children who might want to work in the industry
professionally, but most of the children are not going to go into the
industry. But they can learn so much from the performing arts. My
thought is that if I can teach kids to connect with themselves, find
out who they are and get them to express their ideas, that they will
be better off, and do whatever it is they want to do.”

This summer, the studio is offering
seven camps for kids to explore acting, singing, dancing and
improvisation. Registration is open now.

The main stage has state-of-the-art lighting and sound equipment, and can handle anything from a musical or dance production to a comedy show or concert.

After Uptown was allowed to buy the
vacant Armory from the state for $760,000 in May 2015 and broke
ground just under a year ago, “We raised $4.2 million,” said
executive director Angela Scully, “but it cost more than that, so
we need to raise another $500,000-plus, and we also need to re-do the
outside of the building. It has to be done with historic preservation
in mind, so it's not just power-washing. So we're still looking for
funding, and we have naming opportunities available.” The theater has evolved from four
friends discussing the need for a theater in West Chester to the
present-day staff of two full-time paid employees, some part-time
technical workers, a 24-member board of directors, an advisory board
and an array of donors.

“I've seen so many theaters go
under,” Walden-Murphy said, “because the only thing that's
supporting that building is one theater company. What I think is
great about Uptown is they are pulling in all of these creative arts
and allowing them all to support the building.”

Outside rentals of the facilities are
available as well, Scully said, adding to the financial support for
the arts companies. “Someone is renting the bar for a wedding
brunch,” she said. “Someone else is renting a space upstairs for
their office party. Another person rented the upstairs space for his
album launch.”

The arts center kicked off the year with a New Year's Eve gala that featured dancing on the stage.

Leslie Telthorster, who handles
publicity for Uptown, said that surveys distributed to those who came
to see the debut production came back saying, “We came expecting to
see community theater, but got a whole lot more,” she said,
smiling. “And people are learning that we have all these other
things happening.” That kind of endorsement will pay off when
audiences return to see other productions, or concerts, or dance
shows. The initial board backed the idea of
bringing in the Resident Theater Company, which made a spectacular
splash with their initial production of “Monty Python's Spamalot,”
which sold out nearly its entire run from March 31 to April 16.

Scully said the center is running at
about 85 percent capacity, “and our schedule is quite full,” but
there's room for more. “For us, the goal was having a mix of the
arts so we would have a cross-pollination,” she said. “I love
when I see people come in for 'Spamalot' and they are bringing their
grandchildren back for Therese's shows, or they come for a concert or
a travel adventure film screening. That's what we were looking for
when we started.”

At the New Year's Eve kickoff gala this
year, Scully said, there weren't any chairs installed yet in the
theater space, but 550 guests filled the building, even dancing on
the stage to celebrate the opening of a new attraction in downtown
West Chester. The mood was upbeat and optimistic.

With West Chester University's arts
departments on the southern end of town, and now Uptown on the
northern end, the borough is bracketed by the arts. The downtown
business community has been a firm supporter as well, Scully said.

“I think they saw this as the missing
piece of West Chester,” she said.